Little Skillet: Brown Sugar, Pecan & Bacon Grits
This was during the same day that I went to Santa Ramen. They have since changed the container for the grits. Its now like a ice cream pint container. I think its a lot harder to mix now than it was before. Still great best grits I've had in the city so far...
Marengo on Union
On Tuesday I just happen to be on the bus headed out to get some ramen at Japantown when I was checking eater and found out that a new slider place was opening down in the marina called Marengo on Union. I checked out the menu and decided to change my eating location to this place. Boy was I happy I did. Located at 1980 Union st. at Buchanan it was an easy walk from the 22. I arrived slightly after the place just opened up so I was the third person inside. As you enter you are greeted by a large bar at the front where they do all the cooking. Nice to see your food being cooked while you wait, it makes me all the more hungry. The restaurant is nice an airy in design, with lots of windows, and skylights to bring in a lot of light, warm woods give it an elegant, but inviting feeling. There are two distinct spaces that are available for seating, the front with the kitchen bar, and the back room with a regular bar.
The menu consists of a selection of appetizers, salads, and the main event sliders. There are 8 savory sliders priced at $3.95 each, and two dessert sliders at $3.00 each. Each slider is about 2oz of meat which gives you about 3-4 bites of food. So a selection of 3-4 would probably satisfy the average eater. I started off by trying three different ones, the all-american, crispy chick, and the coconut shrimp, then followed it up with the porky's and the staring.
The first slider I had was the crispy chick, which is a crispy chicken, corn relish, romaine lettuce, and ranch dressing. The chicken was moist and flavorful, but it seemed like it was lacking the the crispy department. I was expecting more of a crunchiness to the batter, but it was more of a softer texture. The corn relish was slightly bland, and it seemed like it was missing the lettuce and couldn't even taste the ranch dressing. The star of the slider was the chicken, but the other cast of ingredients seemed to have disappeared in background.
Next up was the coconut shrimp. This was a fried shrimp with mango pico de gallo. Again there was a similar issue crispy chicken, in that the batter on the shrimp was not crunchy, resulting in a soggier skin. Despite that the batter was flavorful and the shrimp and mango pico de gallo worked well together. Giving it a tropical vibe.
The all-american is just what it sounds like a beef patty, with lettuce, tomato, cheddar cheese, special sauce, and caramelized onions. The beef was cooked to a nice medium and was juicy and flavorful. Each bite of this slider was just like eating a great burger, as it should be. All the elements in this burger worked together nothing overpowered it.
The next slider was the starling. This was ground lamb, with grilled halloumi cheese, tomato, cucumber, garbonzo tahini. The lamb had a bunch of herbs and spices added into and was cooked to a medium well. The seasoning reminded of me middle eastern kebabs and the ingredients as a whole reminded me of the region. Each bite of the lamb was packed with flavor, but it didn't overpower the other ingredients, the tahini came in boosting the flavor of the dish, and then the tomato and cucumber worked to cool off the the flavor. The grilled cheese added another mild component to the dish, and I think if it weren't for the cucumber, it might have been lost in the slider.
Finally I had the porky's which is a pulled pork shoulder, with tangy & spicy BBQ sauce, coleslaw and blue cheese & cider vinaigrette. Slathered in BBQ sauce the pulled pork was tender and delicious. The sauce itself had a little kick which complimented to coleslaw. What I was trying to identify was where the blue cheese was coming in, I never got that flavor profile as I ate. It also seemed like a vinaigrette might night be needed since the BBQ sauce is already tangy as is. I think it would be nice to to have blue cheese on it.
Rating
Crispy Chick: 7.5/10 - The chicken is the star, but it overwhelmed all the other components. Wanted a crispier batter.
Coconut Shrimp: 8/10 - Good combination of mango, coconut, and shrimp. Again, batter could have been crispier.
All-American: 9/10 - A perfect example of how a well made burger should taste.
The Starling: 10/10 - Packed full of flavor, but nothing overpowering each other.
Porkys: 9/10 - Excellent pulled pork, nice coleslaw, missing the blue cheese.
Overall: 8.5/10 - This is place is definitely on my radar now, and I will be going back. Sadly I didn't have enough room to try the appetizers or salads which all sound good too. The level of attention they put to each slider is amazing. The only concern I have is will they still be able to maintain that same level of attention when there are packed with orders. I was the only one getting sliders at the time, so I'm interested to see if they can keep it up when they have other tickets up. I will be back to find out though.
Coconut shrimp
Crispy Chick
All American
Porky's
The Starlin
Santa Ramen
Went to Santa Ramen a while back here are the photos. Can't really say that I was impressed, but I'll need to go back and try again forgot what it tasted like.
Lunch at The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen
I've been looking forward to this place opening ever since I saw the constructions signs go up half a year ago on this SOMA establishment. TAGCK just opened up Friday, so just like an new hip food place that just opened, there was a line. The line wasn't that long, and the staff was super nice about it, apologizing for the wait, and offering water, and complementary house sodas to the people in line.
Here is a run down of what I had:
Reubenesque
gruyére, jarlsberg, David’s Old World pastrami, local ‘kraut, Lusty B’s bread ’n butter pickles, deli mustard on rye $10Smoky Tomato Soup
house made with crème fraîche, croutons $4House made New York deli-style pickle $1.5
House made sodas served from our vintage tap. Flavor: Vanilla Gingermint free!
The Grilled Cheese
The Tomato Soup
The house soda was great, its really similar to an Italian soda in how its made, a couple pumps of syrup and some soda water. The flavor, Vanilla Gingermint was great, a more refined version of ginger ale. The flavors were distinct, the Vanilla is the first flavor you taste and it transitions beautifully into the ginger component as it does the two intermingle again. At the end the mint comes in and as you swallow it refreshes the pallet. They had another soda flavor available called spiced pomegranate, which I will have to try on my next visit. If its as good as the Vanilla Gingermint I can't wait to see what other flavors they will come out with.
The pickle was another surprise I got. Its not too vinegary or salty, what comes out most is the pickling spices they used. Crisp and refreshing with a hint of heat, what a tasty treat.
The sandwich was fantastic. The ingredients were in perfect proportion with each other, all the flavors came together and nothing overpowered each other. I enjoyed the taste of the rye bread, the caraway taste was stronger then I usually see in rye breads, but that just added to the depth of flavor of the sandwich. Sauerkraut, which actually still resembled the cabbage it was created from, had a nice mild sour/tart taste to it which went well with the pickles that were more on the sweeter side. The pastrami was thinly sliced moist and delicious, it had good flavor and my only complaint would be that I wanted more of it. The cheeses were still gooey and it felt like a blanket of deliciousness wrapping around all the other ingredients. Usually when I have a reuben style sandwich in the city something is always out of balance, either there is just way to much mustard that it kills my pallet or the sauerkraut is some weird consistency or just too sour, the pastrami is dry, too cold, or doesn't even taste like pastrami, none of those problems were present here. Each component of the sandwich were some of the best versions of the individual item I have tasted recently, all combined with a skillful hand.
The tomato soup was pleasing and I could see why its always used in combination with a grilled cheese, very comforting. There was a nice spice to the soup, which I couldn't determine if it came from peppers that were added or perhaps some seasoning used. There were a few things that detracted from it though. First I couldn't really get that smokey flavor, I don't think it tasted bad without it, but I would like to have seen what it would taste like had the smokey flavor been a stronger part of the dish. Secondly, this is more a personal preference type of thing, I would have liked to have a more crunchy crouton, something that could hold up better to soup and still stay crispy for a longer period. Lastly, I felt the tomato flavor of the soup was being lost in the mix, all the flavors were melded will together, but in this instance I think it would have been better if the tomato rose above the rest, with the others just complementing it. None of these are a deal breaker for the soup though, which was still delicious.
Final Rating:
Vanilla Gingermint House Soda: 10/10
More, more, I want more! This is some amazing stuff.
Deli Style Pickle: 9/10
Great Pickle nuff said.
Reubenesque: 9/10
A great sandwich with all components perfectly combined.
'Smokey' Tomato Soup: 8/10
A great soup, would have like it had more of the smokey flavor, also a strong tomato taste would have been good too. Needs crispier croutons
Overall: 9/10
I will definitely comeback to this place again and try the other sandwiches out. There are currently no breakfast items on the menu, but I can't wait to try those too. Looking forward to seeing where this place is going, but hopefully the line wont be too long next time.
Hapa Ramen is like Star Wars Episode One
Hapa Ramen is a new food stand that is slated to open at the San Francisco Ferry Building this summer. Now being a Ferry Building stand there is a level of expectation that is comes with that. For the most part the new breed of food stands that are coming out have been amazing. Namu, Tacolicious and others have all had exceptional food with impeccable execution. Sadly, Hapa Ramen's preview event that occurred tonight was far from either.
I won't talk too much about the service issues that occurred. To summarize those, the event began at 6:00pm, I got there around 6:20. From that point until we were seated was almost 4 hours. Afterwards it took 45 minutes to get our food, for a grand total of almost 5 hours waiting. As a final note on this we were the last group to be served.
When I first got the ramen the portion incredibly small, about a quater of the size that one would get at Katana-ya or Tanpopo, at equivalent prices. The price for a bowl of "Everything" ramen was 13 dollars. To add insult to injury, by the time we were seated they ran out of pork so the "Everything" ramen became the "Almost Everything" ramen. To be honest though even if the pork was included I don't think it could have salvaged this bowl of food. The aroma that came from the ramen was somewhat funky. It had the slight aroma of a ramen broth, but was dominated by something else that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Everything was generally lukewarm like it had been sitting on a shelf for 30 minutes to cool down before serving.
The noodles, which are hand made, were mushy and lacked texture. It was if they noodle was overcooked to the point that they were barely holding their shape and as soon as you put them in your mouth they would break apart. The broth was another big issue. There was no flavor whatsoever, which gave it a watered down taste. I'm not sure if this was supposed to be a shio, shoyu, or tonkatsu style broth, but it didn't taste like anything. I had to add a lot of togarashi for it to even remotely have any flavor at all. There was also an unpleasant aftertaste that made it hard to finish. It was almost as if they put unwashed gobo into the broth which created an almost dirt like taste.
While the men and the broth were complete disasters, the topping didn't escape the ramen hell either. The karaage was flavorless, it would have been less offended if they would have just put boiled chicken down. The egg not bad, and the peas were okay. But the green onions were poorly chopped, looked liked they tried to slice them thinly, but ended up getting a few large uncut portions. The summer vegetables either rhubarb or celery was so chewy that it felt like it was gnawing or a piece of bark.
While I can attribute a lot of the problems to being just a test run and being the end of the night, I feel there are some core problems here for ramen purist that cannot be resolved without a whole reworking of some of the recipes. With that in mind I feel that this could be a good "Ferry Building Ramen". The toppings that were included are not the items one would traditionally associate with ramen in the first place. The broth doesn't invoke in my mind anything associated with the regular ramen flavors either, but they do go well with the whole organic, locally sourced vibe of the Ferry Building. For people who have never had real ramen before, or their only experience with it is the store bought instant stuff, then this might be amazingly tasty.
This whole experience can be summed up in the analogy of the title. There was so much hype in the blogosphere, and the lines and wait were so long that it is impossible to live up to that.
Final Rating:
1/10
The peas and egg were the only good things. This is so far from what I would consider ramen that it should be called something else.
Surf and turf, Japanese Style
Beef and seafood are two I strongly associate with Japan. Both have a quality that is on another level compared with products from anywhere else that I have been. While there is seafood at can rival that found in Japan, no one has ever been able to match the beef. It has never been replicated.
When I had the opportunity to some surf and turf in Japan I jumped at the chance. The place I went to was located in Akihabara. This surprised me at first because I have never come to associate Akihabara with good food. However, I was assured that this the place we were going was famous for preparing beef in a western style so my fears were partially assuaged.
They had various steaks as well as beef qualities as options. All beef was Japanese with high prices for higher grades. My eyes glazed over the pages as I saw picture after delicious picture of steaks. I locked onto one page that contained a piece of beef loin and a giant shrimp. This is the one I wanted, price was ¥6300, no big deal it was beef and I had to have it.
When it came to our table the meat and shrimp were on a heavy cast iron hot plate, the fat still sizzling from the residual heat. The portion of beef was puny compared to the cut you get at an American steak house. However, what it lacked on size it made up for in flavor. There was a nice beef flavor and richness that is hard to match. The marbling of the beef made it melt in your mouth. This combination made every bite a bit of heaven in your mouth and I wish for a bigger piece so I could eat more and continue to savor it. The shrimp was comparable in size to a lobster. It seemed like it was twice cooked, lightly boiled sliced in half and mayonnaise placed on top then grilled. The mayo gave it a tangy taste and infused it with an additional fattiness that one would normally get with melted butter. There was a lot of mayo for one which over powered the shrimp. I wasn't able to experience the sweetness of the seafood as much as I would have liked. However, the combination of the richness and tangyness of the mayo, with the sweetness of the shrimp went well together and it was a good combination. Overall the meal was fantastic and for the price I though was pretty reasonable. I would have liked a bigger piece of meat or even one from Matsuzaka, but that definitely would have made the cost of the meal exorbitantly high.
